1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process utilizing data control methods and associated apparatus which provides for high speed data transfer by means of highly distributed data storage, and massively parallel data transfer and reception over multiple pathways.
Corresponding phases of the data transfer process have been modified in order to alleviate bandwidth bottlenecks which would normally occur when used with conventional computers, local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), metropolitan area networks (MANs), and intermediary data storage, communications systems and broadcast networks; for example: telephone company central offices, cable television (CATV) broadcast facilities, satellite uplink centers, web hosting companies, and so on.
The invention regards the prerecorded audio and video content of Video-on-Demand networks as data and manages it accordingly. As a result, the process is equally capable of being utilized with data files of all types. Because the of its orientation within the service providers network and throughout the data path, in addition to multi platform capabilities, the invention may be interfaced with many disparate systems.
2. Description of Related Art
The current state of Video-On-Demand technology primarily relates to a “program provider ” such as “Pay-Per-View” (or in some cases individual cable television companies), supplying subscribers with a predetermined choice of movies each month, with predetermined times at which the movies will be shown. If the subscriber wishes to view the movie he/she “orders” the movie from the service provider to which he/she receives cable or satellite television service.
The overall technical process is such that the program provider normally “airs” movies in a manner similar to traditional television broadcast networks. However, since the program provider is showing multiple movies and providing services to a cable or satellite television network, the provider multiplexes the signals onto a single “feed”, and acquires a data connection such as ATM over SONET to the service provider who then interfaces this “feed” to its broadcast equipment, for dissemination of signals to the appropriate subscribers within the network.
The disadvantages to this are that subscribers are restricted to a relatively small number of movies at any time, and because of the prescheduled times for “airing” the movies, conflicts with subscriber schedules are inevitable. This raises the problem of intellectual property security, since many subscribers feel the need to record such movies when schedule conflicts arise.
Computer networks provide many file management capabilities which would be useful in this arena, and to that end over the last few years some have experimented with using traditional computer networks to supply greater versatility to movie selection in much the same manner as a typical computer Wide Area Network (WAN) functions, with disappointing results.
The problem is primarily one of bandwidth. Movie files with DVD encoding average around six gigabits in size, while this form of encoding currently presents the best movie quality, MPEG2 is the standard at which most movies are transmitted to CATV subscribers with less quality. Even with this encoding process, the resulting data files are too large for all but the smallest networks because of data traffic congestion and limited bandwidth.
When one realizes that even if a subscriber had a T1 connection (approximately 1.5 Mb/s), it would take more than an hour to download a DVD quality movie, the problems of bandwidth as they relate to Video-On-Demand come into perspective; especially since T1 connections average several hundred dollars per month, depending upon the geographic area.
Another example of the problem is found with both cable modems which are associated with CATV systems, and DSL which is associated with telephony networks. Because of network architecture and associated protocols, when the number of subscribers on these networks increase, the amount of continual bandwidth tends to decrease.
The common ground upon which all of the aforementioned methods of data transmission rests, also happens to be one of their weakest links, it is that traditional data transmissions are serial in nature.
The end result is that the main weaknesses which are inherent in both the computer and communications industries combine to prohibit the cost efficient bandwidth which would be required to develop a Data-on-Demand network with unlimited Video, Audio and other data files (such as video/PC games, and sheet music as an option to accompany audio files, computer programs, and so on), which could adequately serve hundreds of thousands of subscribers or more.